I should have been a rock star…. The lullaby

I should have been a rock star…. The lullaby

Yesterday, I walked into the field house following a frustrating practice with the 9ht grade football team… picked up the phone to see Corwin, who is at U of Tulsa, had left me a text.
Of course, one of the first things a parent thinks is “What’s wrong?”
I opened the text to find this message…..

“I just listened to Rocky Raccoon. Ah, good memories. I remember when you used to sing that to us.”

Suddenly, the tension of the practice and my aggravation with the day’s actions of 15-year-old boys faded into a smile. Warm memories of a rocking chair and bedtime chased away the October afternoon chill.

The Lullabies…
One of the few times it was OK to sing out loud for me.
When the boys were small, Ash and I often held them, rocked and sang them to sleep. Spoiled them? Maybe? Should we have done the thing about just laying them down awake so they’d get used to going to sleep on their own? Maybe. But I think it was as much as a selfish thing for us as it was a soothing thing for them.
We got to hold them, sing to them and slowly coax them into sleep with a collection of songs from the past. The warm baby or toddler, pressed against your chest, or cradled in your arms, drifting slowly into soft snores while we visited old friends in the guise of familiar tunes.

Ash and I each had our own particular list of songs we sang to the boys. Ashley went for some soft classics such as “Peter Paul and Mary’s “Puff the Magic Dragon,” or even current tunes (at that time) such as the bangles “Eternal Flame.”

“Close your eyes. Give me your hand.
Do you feel my heart beating?
Do you understand?
Do you feel the same?
Am I only dreaming?
Or is this burning an eternal flame?”

Her voice was softer and more graceful than my own, as I cracked and broke through a collection of classic Beatles and Monkee tunes.
“Sing Rocky! Sing Rocky!” was something both boys demanded from time to time. So, I would start with the songs sing-song spoken intro of “Now somewhere in the black mountain hills of Dakota lived a young boy named Rocky Raccoon, “ before leading into the song about the brash young man seeking revenge for the man who stole his love away.
The Beatles white album was a treasure trove of songs for bedtime. We sang “I Will,” “Dear Prudence,” “Mother nature’s Son,” and “Honey Pie.” The Beatles also offered up “Golden Slumbers,” “Till There Was You,” “Eight days a Week,” “Let It Be,” and “Here Comes the Sun.”
The boys were introduced to the Monkees in “Daydream Believer,” “What Am I Doing Hanging ‘Round,” and “I’m a Believer.”

No doubt, the boys had their favs. Sometimes they would request “Bungalow Bill” from the Beatles. Others, it was Queen and “Somebody to Love.” Or “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Cat Stevens, Chicago, America, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Leon Russell and the Moody Blues… we were the boy’s personal bedtime jukeboxes.

It was a sad moment for me, when the boys got older and the singing began to fade away. I remember the day when Corwin, falling asleep on my lap, as I began to sing softly, reached his small hand to my mouth and said “Don’t sing right now, daddy.”
He didn’t need the song to fall asleep anymore.

Our joke has always been that if we were to make the boys playlists of the songs we sang to them to rock them to sleep, it would still knock them out. After all, they both still crash into dreamland when riding in the back of the car, even on short trips to Tulsa. Those little kids comforts die hard.

“Who Knows How Long I loved you
You know I love you still
Will I wait a lonely life time
If you want me to I will.”